Taiwan

Our Plan 

We heard good things about Taiwan from other cyclists and James, an ex-student of ours, spent a few weeks riding around the island and raved about it, although he said there was a lot of climbing. It was easy and cheap to get to from Malaysia where we live, and the climate was just right for a Christmas break, All we knew was that we wanted to head for the hills and also to the east coast where it would be wild and empty. The other thing we required was a beach so that Leo could 'camp on a beach on Christmas Eve', something that he said he wanted to do. 

Geographically the island is characterized by the contrast between the eastern two-thirds, consisting mostly of rugged mountains running in five ranges from the northern to the southern tip of the island, and the flat to gently rolling Chianan Plains in the west that are also home to the majority of Taiwan's 24 million population. This was a good reason to head East as we would be away from most of the busy areas. Taiwan's highest point is Yu Shan (Jade Mountain) at 3,952 metres, and when you think that the island is only 140km across at its widest point (with 5 ranges of mountains) and 400km long, it's fairly clear that this is an island with a lot of ups and downs. We would not be rolling along on the typical Chinese 3.5% gradients.

Our intention was to find a way across the ranges of mountains in the centre, head down the renowned Taroko gorge and then ride along the wild and empty undulating coastline. We would turn and ride back up north along the coastal rift valley whenever we ran out of time. We could then get a train back to Taipei and then ride to our  hotel near the airport in Taoyuan in order to return home. We were able to leave our bike boxes at our hotel, so packing and unpacking would be as simple as possible and armed with our gps and some good maps we were ready for an adventure.